


Osaka

by thingsbaker



Series: Titanium [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Victor Nikiforov's Past, but only a tiny snippet, language learning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-25 12:18:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15640620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingsbaker/pseuds/thingsbaker
Summary: After the Cup of China, Yuuri waited for an awkward discussion of the kiss on the ice. He waited that night, in their shared hotel room; waited over breakfast the next morning, when Victor had sat on the same side of the booth and stolen bites from Yuuri’s plate; he waited on the flight home, when he woke to the scent of Victor’s sweet shampoo from where he’d nestled against him in the air. He waited, but they never spoke of it. Instead, Victor comes back to Japan ready to immerse himself in the language, and Yuuri comes back wondering what exactly had happened.OR:Victor is learning Japanese for all the wrong and right reasons.(Part of a series but reading the first part isn't necessary)





	Osaka

**Author's Note:**

> This exists because I needed to work out how/why/which pet names/diminutives Yuuri and Victor would use, and then it turned into this non-explicit first-time story. In part because I think Mari would enjoy the heck out of embarrassing Yuuri relentlessly. (Huge thanks to the tumblr post about this by niedolia -- I'm using the suggested nicknames from there).
> 
> Also I have some feelings about Katsuki Toshiya I need to work out, I think?

* * *

Victor is learning Japanese. It is charming and frustrating in equal measure. Charming, because he wants to learn it so that they can talk “in the language of your dreams, Yuuri, this is important!” Frustrating, though, because Victor believes that immersion is the best method to truly understanding a language, which means he asks that everyone speaks to him only in Japanese. That means that Yuuri’s mother, whose grasp of English is as solid as Yuuri’s own, has to patiently wait for Victor to dig through his translation app just to answer what he’d like to drink for dinner. “It’s cute,” she says in the kitchen, later, when Yuuri is putting together a tea tray and she’s tending eggs. “But it would certainly speed things up if we could just speak English.”

“I know,” Yuuri says, stacking their cups. Outside, in the dining room, he hears Victor and his father laugh. “But he’s persistent. I don’t know why he thinks he’ll need Japanese after this season, anyway.”

His mother laughs. “You never know when it might come in handy.”

 

* * *

 

After the Cup of China, Yuuri waited for an awkward discussion of the kiss on the ice. He waited that night, in their shared hotel room; waited over breakfast the next morning, when Victor had sat on the same side of the booth and stolen bites from Yuuri’s plate; he waited on the flight home, when he woke to the scent of Victor’s sweet shampoo from where he’d nestled against him in the air. He waited, but they never spoke of it. Instead, Victor comes back to Japan ready to immerse himself in the language, and Yuuri comes back wondering what exactly had happened.

It’s not as though things haven’t changed. They have. They clearly have. Victor snags his hand sometimes when he wants to get Yuuri’s attention. He drapes himself comfortably over Yuuri’s back when they stand together to chat with Yuuko at the Ice Castle entrance. And twice, now, after they’ve soaked in the springs, Victor has followed him back to his room and pinned him against the thin wall of his bedroom for a round of kissing that’s left Yuuri weak in the knees.

They haven’t gone further. Yuuri wants to. He really, really wants to, but he has no idea how to initiate this. How does he say, “Thank you for the advice today about my elbows tucking in during the loop. Also, are we dating now? If so, would it be all right if we moved on from making out to at least hand jobs this week?”

He shudders and turns bright red just thinking about it.

“OK?” Victor asks, one of the only English words he’s allowing himself.

“Hai,” Yuuri says, and turns back to his stretches, trying desperately to think of anything else.

 Victor reaches over and rubs Yuuri’s ankle with one thumb, which _does not help_. “OK,” he says, and then sends Yuuri off to do power pulls, _thank god._

It’s insane to be worrying about this when there are many, many other things to think about: Rostelecom is in two weeks, and the Finals are barely a month away (if he even makes it that far). Yuuri practices relentlessly. When he isn’t on the ice, he’s in the studio, or working out, or stretching, or cooling down from all of those. In between those practices, he folds back into his family’s life. Mari bullies him into helping with cleaning rooms, his least favorite task. His mother more gently requests his help with organizing the storeroom. Yuuri used to beg for this job as a child, keen to be left alone to sort and order things for hours in the cool quiet. Now, he sits peacefully beside his mother as they count and sort out table settings and linens, good from bad, repairable to burnable.

On Tuesday afternoons, while Victor keeps a standing appointment with his agent and publicist, he goes to Minako’s bar, dutifully, because it is her afternoon off and someone needs to make sure she doesn’t (in her own words) drink her own inventory.

Mari usually joins him, which tells Yuuri something he didn’t know about his absence. Mari never took ballet and never wanted to, but she and Minako had traveled together, a few times, to his competitions. He’d always thought they’d been roommates of convenience. Now, he can see there’s real friendship there, and he’s surprised he didn’t realize sooner the match in their dry senses of humor and blunt observations. 

Take, for instance, the second Tuesday they’re back from China, three days before Rostelecom, when they decide, together, that it’s time for Yuuri to die.

He’s sitting at the bar when it happens. Mari is picking through Minako’s glassware, sorting out pieces that she thinks are too scratched to be in continued use. A small pile of these glasses have found their way to the bartop, where Yuuri is dividing them into neat rows by type: sake, pint glasses, wine glasses. Most of them have flaws beyond his own observation, but Mari notices these things. She’s a sharp critic whenever they eat at another establishment or stay at another inn.

This reminds him of something. “Do either of you know a good place to stay in Osaka?”

“Eh? For what?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri says. “Only Victor has decided that he wants to visit after we get back from Russia, and since he’s only going to be in Japan for so long…” He shrugs. “He wants to make a whole day of it, stay overnight.” He sighs. “I’m not sure why he wants to be gone for that long when I could really use the practice time.”

When he looks up, they’re both staring at him. “Ah — what?”

“Putting aside your dumb ‘only going to be in Japan for so long’ bullshit,” Mari says, “your Russian boyfriend is taking you on an overnight romantic trip around your birthday and you’re worried about the practice time?”

“What? No no no,” Yuuri says, then frowns. “Boyfriend? Do you really think he —?”

Minako slaps the bartop. “Why are you so dumb about this? He’s been all over you for weeks now. He kissed you on television!”

And also not on television, Yuuri thinks, but he doesn’t elaborate. Last night had been another kiss-against-the-wall night, and he’s been fighting a blush every time he runs his fingers over the tender skin at the base of his throat. “We’ve never really talked about it,” he says.

“What’s there to say? He’s hot for you and you’ve worshipped him since before puberty,” Minako says, and Yuuri groans.

“Please never tell him that.”

“And now he’s whisking you away to do dirty things in a foreign city where your parents can’t hear through the walls. It’s what adult relationships are about,” Minako says.

Yuuri worries about her life, sometimes.

Mari laughs. “Guess that explains why he had me explain about love hotels the other day, too.”

Now they both stare at Mari, though Yuuri’s sure his expression is more one of about-to-combust-from-embarrassment than Minako’s, which is frankly too curious. “Whaaaaa?”

She shrugs. “He was reading about it on his phone and asked me to explain the difference between two places. It’s not even the weirdest thing he’s asked to have translated since he’s been here, but in context…” She grins. “You’re finally gonna get some, eh, little brother?”

Yuuri lets his head sink to the bartop. “Oh my god, I’m going to die.”

“Not if he’s doing it right,” Minako says, thoughtfully. Yuuri groans. “Relax. You basically broadcast virgin, except when you’re skating. I’m sure he knows what he’s dealing with.”

A human sack of anxiety, Yuuri thinks. An inner fanboy equally overjoyed and strangled by embarrassment at his fantasies coming true. A twenty-three-year-old man facing a sex talk from his older sister and teacher. “I’m going to die,” he whispers, again, just before Mari says, “I can get you some of the condoms from the inn, too, but definitely check their expiration dates.”

Why it can’t be a swift death, Yuuri doesn’t know.

* * *

 

The next week flies by with the competition and Makkachin’s emergency. By the time Yuuri arrives home, he’s completely wiped out. He crashes into Victor’s arms at the airport, then drools on him in the back of the car while Nishigori drives them back home.

He wakes up panicked about the final.

“Worry about something more fun,” his sister says when he nibbles on vegetables at breakfast.

“Huh?”

“At least when you’re worrying about your sex life, it’s fun to tease you,” she says.

Victor picks that moment to arrive, smiling and windswept and inhumanly beautiful, from taking Makkachin on a short stroll. “Ah, good morning, sleeping lovely,” he says, beaming, in rough Japanese, and Mari snorts.

Yuuri’s brain takes Mari’s advice, the traitor. He spends the next two days in an anxious fog. Every time Victor smiles at him, Yuuri smiles back, reflexively, before his brain spins into overdrive: _This is a man who wants to have sex with you_ , it reminds him, _who is planning to have sex with you, you, you. He will see all of you._

It’s that last that has Yuuri up at night, curled into a ball in the family section of the dining room, tucked up next to the kotatsu, staring out of the window at the snowy street beyond. He’s not afraid of sex — well, not really. Actually, OK, not at all, he is totally excited about the possibility of sex, except for the part where he might be bad at it. But Victor is so naturally good at everything involving movement and bodies, and he’s such a narcissistic hedonist, that Yuuri feels like it will be good no matter what. So he sets aside that fear, mostly, as something he can experience in the moment.

No, he’s worried about the… intimacy of it. Nakedness doesn’t bother him. Victor’s seen him at pretty much his physical low and high recently, and Yuuri grew up with a pretty healthy respect for all types and shapes of bodies. It’s the emotional intimacy that makes his heart race. He’s already so vulnerable to Victor. Yuuri wants so much of him and from him, and he knows he has limited time. He’s worried that this level of intimacy will mean too much — that it will mean everything to Yuuri, and not enough to Victor. After all, how could it ever mean enough to him? Victor, who’s had a million other lovers, who’s blithely making a mini-vacation plan, isn’t even trying (doesn’t need to try) to seduce him. Yuuri’s already lost on him.

“Ahh,” his father says, shuffling through the room. He wears slippers and a familiar old robe, his hair mussed as though he’s just been laying down. Outside, the sky has begun to shimmer with faint streaks of pink. “Can’t sleep.”

“No, sorry,” Yuuri says.

His father nods and sits next to him, stretching his legs under the kotatsu, his shoulder maybe a hand’s width away from Yuuri’s curled back. The mats make a shush-shush noise as he settles into his usual cushion. He spreads a printed newspaper across the table. Yuuri could rock back a little and lean against him, like he had as a child, when his father would sit and read or work on the books quietly while Yuuri grew sleepy against him. They’d spent many quiet evenings like that, Yuuri physically exhausted from practice but mentally wound up, his father a cool and jovial presence. He never expected Yuuri to talk, never made him him express the worries of his days, but Yuuri had always felt welcome to do so.

Now, he says, “How did you know that you and Mom would work out?”

His father smoothes the newspaper before him. “I didn’t,” he says. “I still don’t!”

“Dad.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Well, it’s true. No one can predict the future.” When he shrugs, his shoulder brushes Yuuri’s, and Yuuri does lean, just slightly, his father’s arm warm and solid through the thin material of his own robe. “I love your mom,” he says, voice quiet but matter-of-fact, “but we both make the choice to stay together every day. Of course, now, it’s habit, yes, but — every day, we have to decide again, is this the life I want ahead of me?”

“That’s — “ Yuuri isn’t sure what he wants to say. It’s unsettling, he thinks. It makes it all seem less certain.

“It’s a hundred different ways, that you decide something like this,” he says. “I’ll bring her tea in an hour. She’ll make the rice bowl I like for breakfast. We’ll laugh at a joke mid-morning, stop in the hallway to talk about you or Mari.”

“How do you decide at first, though?” Yuuri asks. His voice is almost a whisper, but it feels too loud as the room around them begins to lighten with the rising sun. “How do you — do you let someone know so much about you, so that they can, they want to do all of that?” He swallows. “How did you decide you were ready to do that?”

“Ah,” his father says. “Well. One day, I just knew I wanted to know that much about your mother, too. So it only seemed fair to let her know and see that much of myself.” He flips a page of his paper, then shifts, slightly, so he’s taking more of Yuuri’s weight, now. Yuuri tucks his head against his own shoulder, the back of his head brushing his father’s shoulder. He forgets sometimes that he’s no taller than his father, that he’s always been smaller.

“Victor is learning Japanese, I hear,” his dad says, voice still quiet.

“Yes,” Yuuri says.

“Hm.” The sound is brief but approving. Yuuri closes his eyes.

When he wakes up, his father is gone, but Victor is sitting next to him, one finger tracing the main article on the front page. Yuuri has been half-covered with the blanket from the kotatsu, and his head is resting on Victor’s thigh. He startles, nearly knocking his head against Victor’s elbow, but Victor rests a calming hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t move yet,” he says. “Your mother is bringing my breakfast.”

Yuuri groans, covering his face with both hands. Victor’s hand strokes through his hair, his fingers surprisingly gentle. At least the dining room around them is empty. “I’m so sorry,” Yuuri murmurs.

“I didn’t know you were having trouble sleeping,” Victor says. “You really should let me sleep in your room.”

“I — “ Yuuri rubs his eyes, then draws back. “Maybe,” he allows.

He’s managed to sit upright by the time his mother arrives. She sets a bowl of rice and another of miso soup before Victor, then settles a teapot on the table along with two little cups. “Yuuri! Are you feeling better?”

“What?”

“Your father said you were up all night.” She clucks her tongue, then speaks more slowly, still in Japanese. “Vicchan, you should take better care of my son.”

“Yes,” Victor says, and Yuuri can’t tell if he’s understood her statement. It’s embarrassing and endearing at once. “I try.”

“Hm.” She pours them both a cup of tea, strong plain genmaicha. “If you’re learning Japanese, you should learn Japanese tea, too. No jam!”

Victor nods. “No jam. Yes. Thank you.”

When she leaves, Yuuri sighs and melts down onto the table. He’s surprised when Victor pulls him close, again, but he’s too tired to fight it. His head fits gently against Victor’s shoulder. “Let me take you back to your bedroom,” Victor murmurs. He maneuvers Yuuri up off of the cushions and down the hall toward the family rooms. “We’ll practice in the afternoon. You’re too tired.”

“You’re speaking English,” Yuuri mutters as they walk up the narrow stairs. Victor’s hands are framed around his waist, guiding him from behind.

“It’s hard enough not to make ‘let me take you back to bed’ sound suggestive in English," Victor says. “I wasn’t going to risk it.”

They pause in front of Yuuri’s door, and Yuuri leans his forehead against it. “You could, though," Yuuri says. “I wouldn’t mind some suggestions.”

Victor’s lips land so softly against the back of Yuuri’s neck that he’s almost convinced he’s imagining it. “Good to know,” he says. “Now get some rest.”

* * *

Practice that afternoon is better. Yuuri’s still sleep-fogged, his schedule turned around by napping through the morning after staying up all night, and it means his usual filters are weakened. It means he groans when Victor tells him his free leg is sloppy instead of congratulating him on a near-perfect quad flip, and he laughs when Victor’s hair stands up awkwardly after he demonstrates a small change to Yuuri’s footwork.

“Ah, you look like a peacock,” he says, grinning more when Victor clearly doesn’t understand the Japanese for “peacock.”

“Do that one again, then let’s cool off,” Victor says, his Japanese clumsy but surprising serviceable.

“Hai.”

That night, Victor suggests they grab dinner from somewhere before going home, and Yuuri agrees. He’s still in his track suit from practice, with his old winter coat pulled over. Victor’s wearing work-out pants and a T-shirt, but he’s thrown a heavy trench coat and an appealing blue scarf over it, and somehow he looks gorgeous, almost elegant, ready for literally anything. They walk a few blocks from Ice Castle to the ramen place Victor has “discovered” down the street, which is actually the third-best shop in town, owned by Yuuri’s cousin’s husband. They’re seated near a window, away from the press of the bar crowd, for which Yuuri is grateful. He hasn’t seen Hiseo or his cousin Aiko since he’s been back in Japan, and he feels foolishly awkward about it now.

“Thank you, Hiseo-chan,” Yuuri says, speaking clearly and carefully and feeling even more awkward about it. Tinkling music swirls around them, and a group at the bar laughs, high and fast.

Hiseo nods. “Fewer eyes for you and your boyfriend.” He casts a meaningful glance at Victor. “He’s been a good customer for a foreigner.”

Yuuri can feel himself blush. “Ah. Thank you.”

“Yes, thank you,” Victor says in his accented Japanese.

Hiseo laughs, clearly surprised that Victor might have understood. “Text Aiko soon, Yuuri-kun. She’ll be sorry she missed you. I’ll bring the sake you like, eh, Victor-san?”

“Thanks!”

Yuuri bows his thanks and keeps his head down as Hiseo walks away. “Do you know everyone here?” Victor asks.

Yuuri glances around, then shakes his head. “Only the owners, and the servers. Oh, and I think I went to high school with the two women over there?”

Victor doesn’t glance over. “English, then?”

“Please,” Yuuri says, and Victor smiles.

A waiter — not someone Yuuri knows, thank goodness — appears with a warm flask of sake and two small porcelain cups. He sets them down, then takes their order, calling Yuuri “Katsuki-san” at the end. Yuuri lifts the flask and pours Victor’s drink, then hands him the flask to do the same for Yuuri as he holds up his cup.

As he pours, Victor says, “Katsuki-san is formal? So not someone you know?”

“No, I don’t,” Yuuri says.

Victor raises his glass. "Kampai!"

Yuuri takes a sip of the sake and is surprised to find it’s not terrible. Usually, Hideo saves the worst quality sake for serving warm, but maybe he really does think Victor isn’t so bad.

Victor sighs and rests his chin in one hand. “You know, nicknames are important in Russia, too.”

“I, ah, I’ve read that,” Yuuri says, as though he didn’t once spend a few hours reading variations of common Russian diminutives and pet names.

His eyes are focusing on Yuuri, now, the slightest hint of a smile teasing up the corner of his mouth. “It would be very strange for my boyfriend to call me _Victor_ in Russia.”

Yuuri coughs on a new sip of sake. “Wh-what?”

“Your friend said —“

“I know.” Yuuri sets his cup down and looks across at Victor, who’s smiling in a strangely guarded way. All around them, the same people Yuuri has known for his entire life are enjoying their evenings out, drinking, eating, laughing. The noise isn’t as deafening as it always has been, though. It doesn’t feel as exclusionary. He’s got Victor with him, after all, Victor who chose to come with him, who asked him, Katsuki Yuuri, to dinner. Maybe, for once, Yuuri can make a suggestion. “OK,” he says, “then what should I call you?”

“Hm?" 

“As your, ah. Your boyfriend.” 

Victor’s eyes light up before he actually smiles. “Vitya,” he says.

“Vitya," Yuuri repeats. It sounds nice, easier on the tongue than the hard stops of “Vik-tor,” and it makes Victor’s entire face glow.

“In Russian, you’d be, hm. Yura?” Yuuri smiles, just a bit, hearing the warm curiosity in Victor’s voice. “But of course, you’d also need a pet name.”

“Pet?”

“Is there — I don’t think there’s an equivalent in Japan. It’s, hm. Among friends, any friends, I’m Vitya. Close friends, when it’s just us — sometimes, Vitka.”

“Like — right now?”

“Like in the onsen,” he says. “Just you and me.”

Yuuri nods. “Vitya, Vitka. Vitka is the pet name?”

“No,” he says. “Pet names are more intimate. Just family, people who’ve known you since childhood,” he says, and Yuuri starts to nod, “and lovers.”

His head freezes mid-nod, his chin dipped awkwardly. “What?” he squeaks.

“So I’d call you, ah, Yura, here at dinner. And maybe Yurka or Yuka in the onsen, or after a long training session. In bed, though,” and he says this so casually that Yuuri feels dizzy, “or on the way there, Yurotchka, though, I’ve never loved that one. Yurakha? No.”

“No,” Yuuri murmurs, touching his own face to make sure it’s still there.

“Yurasha,” Victor says, and nods. “Yura, Yurasha. That’s good, yes?”

It is good, actually. It is beyond good. Yuuri can’t really describe how it feels to have Victor — _Victor Nikiforov!_ — call him by a pet name. A lover’s name.

“It’s not only in bed,” Victor says, as though Yuuri has a question about the usage of his language at the moment. When Yuuri reaches for his cup, Victor catches his fingers. “But it signals a certain intimacy.”

“Oh.” Yuuri’s voice is so faint he can barely hear himself. “I see.”

“Good.”

Their food arrives, then, and Victor makes a show of thanking the server and complimenting the food in Japanese. Yuuri is still too shocked to really talk. It takes him a full four mouthfuls of soup before he manages to put together a sentence, and even then, he looks at Victor’s bowl instead of his face.

“What about,” and Yuuri has to pause and clear his throat, “about you? A pet name?"

Victor pauses with his noodles dangling from his chopsticks. “Vitenka,” he says, the word low and melodic. It’s permission, Yuuri understands.

Yuuri nods, filing this away. _Osaka_ , he thinks. He will use this when they go.

They are almost halfway home that night when Victor says, “What about Japanese? Is there something I should call you? Ah, Yuuri-kun?”

Yuuri laughs. “No, no.”

“Then what? What’s the close form?”

“You’re already using it.”

“When?”

“No, I mean — to use just my name, that’s informal. It’s — only for very close friends.”

Victor frowns. “Friends?”

“And more than friends,” Yuuri assures him, and takes his hand.

* * *

 

Two nights later, Yuuri eats a balanced and underwhelming dinner of poached chicken and salad, brushes his teeth for three minutes, and then goes to the dining room. It’s been nearly a week since they came home from Rostelecom, and Victor hasn’t said anything more about visiting Osaka. Yuuri has decided to ask.

Victor is lounging against the wall nearest the kitchen, reading something on his phone and scratching Makkachin’s head every few seconds. A small empty cup in front of him means he likely drank briefly with Yuuri’s father.Yuuri sits beside him, confident enough to leave only a little space between them. Victor smiles distractedly over at him.

“Don’t help me,” he says, and it takes Yuuri a moment to realize he’s working with a language app on his phone.

Yuuri nods, and then, trying not to think about it too much, rests his head on Victor’s shoulder. He can feel the small ups and downs as Victor selects answers from the language quiz, feels more than hears as Victor sighs over wrong answers.

The dining room beyond them has mostly cleared out; only an old friend of Mari’s is still seated at the far table, waiting on her to be ready for a concert that night.

“Is there anything you want to see, particularly, in Osaka?” Yuuri asks.

Victor frowns. “If I can’t manage this simple quiz, I don’t know if it even makes sense to go.”

“I can translate,” Yuuri says. “You know I don’t mind.”

“It’s not that,” Victor says. “I need to learn this.” He pokes at the app again, and a mechanical voice mumbles a word that even Yuuri strains to understand. Victor answers its question and frowns when it flashes red, wrong again.

Yuuri can hear the steamy rumble of the dishwasher in the kitchen. He remembers his father boasting when he’d first purchased it, a gift for his mother, he’d said. Was that one of those little choices that kept them together? A gift of help?

He rests the tips of his fingers over the back of Victor’s hand. “Why is it so important,” Yuuri asks, “to learn Japanese?”

Victor sighs. He clicks the phone’s screen off but doesn’t look away from it. “I started to get famous when I was fifteen, you know?”

“Actually, wasn’t it — you won the junior GPF when you were fourteen,” Yuuri says, then buries his face against Victor’s sweater. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, forget that I’m —“

“That’s true,” Victor says, “but GPF famous isn’t world famous. The next year, Anton Stepanov took eighth at the Olympics in Turin, and they sent me to Worlds because the Federation was so mad at him.”

Yuuri remembers that performance, but only as a recording: Victor in gold and white and red, a spinning dervish. He’d finished third.

“I did ice shows that summer, traveled a lot, ended up in magazines.” Yuuri barely refrains from mentioning that he knows first-hand about some of those. “I started getting mail, and job offers, sponsorships. Some of that was good, and some of it…” He shrugged.

“It’s a lot of attention,” Yuuri says.

“Mm.” He blinks, as though rousing himself from a memory. “The most famous person I knew at that age was Yakov’s wife.”

Now Yuuri sits up a little to look at Victor’s face. He doesn’t seem to be joking. “Yakov was married?”

Victor nods. “They lived separately for most of the time that I stayed with him. She was the prima ballerina for the Bolshoi, and worked mostly out of Moscow.”

“The prima — who is it?” Yuuri asks. He’s spent enough time with Minako to know a few names in the ballet circuit.

“Was,” Victor says. “They divorced in the early 2000s. Lilia Baranovskaya.”

That is definitely a name Yuuri’s heard of: she was at Rostelecom with Yuri Plisetsky. “Wow,” he says.

Victor nods. “She gave me some advice. I was sixteen, and I’d started to let some of the attention attract me. Started to wonder what might happen if I acted attracted back, you know.”

“What did she say?”

“She said I should never make love to anyone if I wasn’t fluent in the the language of their dreams.”He folds both of his hands over his phone, long white fingers pressing gently against each other. “It’s good advice. I mean, when I was sixteen, I thought it was pretty terrible, but since then I’ve really taken it to heart.”

Yuuri blinks and sits up. “You only have sex with people who dream in Russian?”

Victor laughs. “I speak three languages fluently. And sex and making love are two very different things,” he says. “They can be the same, but some people — if it’s only sex, why do I care what language they dream in?” He shakes his head. “But when you’re talking about more than that, it matters. She was right.”

Yuuri stares at him, sees the way Victor is watching him, gaze intense but also tender. Victor is learning Japanese because he thinks it will help him understand Yuuri, help him _make love to_ Yuuri.

Mari hustles through the room then, trailing a lemony perfume and a wearing her hair up in two different-colored spikes. “Get a room, you two,” she says, pulling on a torn leather jacket. “Let’s go!”

She and her friend disappear before Yuuri is even completely done blushing. Victor grins. “She has a point.” He stands up and offers Yuuri a hand, which he takes, and he follows Victor back to his own room. Victor steps inside and starts to hunt around for his jacket, saying something about taking Makkachin for one last walk for the night. Yuuri leans against the wall, staring over at him, admiring the long curve of Victor’s back.

“Oh no, no sleeping, lazy,” Victor says, ruffling Makkachin’s fur as she stretches out on his bed. “Up, up.” He says it in Japanese.

“Skating,” Yuuri blurts.

Victor glances over. “What?”

“I — you don’t — you’re already fluent in the language of my dreams,” Yuuri says. “Everything I’ve ever dreamt or wanted, it’s all tied up in skating, it’s all on the ice.” He folds his hands together in front of him, so nervous suddenly that he’s energized by it. It’s like declaring his love at the press conference or yanking Victor’s tie at Rostelecom: he’s too geared up to do anything but go through with it. “You don’t have to learn a new language. Vic- Vitya, you practically taught me this one.”

Victor blinks. He looks stunned, and then Yuuri watches his eyes well briefly with tears. “Wonderful,” he says. He drops his jacket and crosses the room, hands suddenly firm at Yuuri’s shoulders. “You are so wonderful.”

He looks up at Victor’s open, beautiful face. “Vitenka,” he whispers, and watches Victor’s eyelids shutter, hears him take a quick breath. “Should we — can we still go?”

“Yes," Victor says, mouth hovering barely over Yuuri’s, “yes. Let’s go to Osaka.” 

**Author's Note:**

> comments always appreciated! 
> 
> And the main story in this series will wrap up as expected on Thursdays!


End file.
